The Problem with Blame? If You Fix the Blame, You Ignore the Problem

Have you ever found yourself in a hurry to leave the house for an appointment when you could not find your car keys?

Imagine that you and a friend are in a hurry to leave for an important event. You turn over the couch cushions, rifle through the newspapers on the dining room table, search your previous day's pants pockets, and dig through your purse. Your car keys are nowhere to be found.

Many frantic minutes later, you finally locate the keys. But instead of heading out the door, you argue about who was responsible for misplacing the keys.

Preposterous, isn't it? Laying blame is a further waste of time. Better to hit the road, right? Unfortunately this logic is often lost when ventures fail and organizations fall short of goals. There is a strong predisposition to finding the sole source of fault. But, that is not how to get things done.

Fix the Problem, Not the Blame

This Japanese proverb provides an important lesson on how to appropriately respond to failure. Laying blame will distract you from resolution. To articulate why, I am going to share a revelation with you.

Failure is Painful

We have all been there. Plans are made, resources committed, hours spent towards achieving a goal. Success or failure can weigh on numerous factors and solitary decisions. When failure happens, you are disappointed. You hurt, and you should hurt. The pain of failure is healthy, and can be very productive.

If you believe it is unreasonable to expect perfection, then you allow for the possibility of failure. Excellence is found in your response to failure, not in your elimination of it-that would be folly.

Excellence cannot be achieved without staying steadfast and focused on your goals. Within the construct of excellence, failure is feedback from the system you are operating in. Failure is a call to alter your strategies or improve your execution.

We all make mistakes. Mistakes put you in pain. To solve the problem, requires learning from your mistakes. Why is the pain of failure healthy?

Pain Teaches

The pain experienced by your failure is your conscience providing motivation to change and the urgency to mitigate the damage. Disavowing the pain, by laying blame, provides you with relief at the cost of distracting your focus and energy away from where it is needed to produce corrective action and results.

Take the timeless example of a losing sports team. When a team is losing, when its performance is inferior to its competitors, what is the standard response? Dismiss the coach; rather than those directly responsible for performance, the players. How often does this improve performance?

Certainly there are instances when coaching changes result in more wins, but rarely are those changes long-lasting. Sports teams relying on a coaching change to alter results are acting in a false logic.

The rare exception when a leadership change produces lasting positive results becomes the justification for others to follow the example. In part, it is the path of least resistance. However, these exceptions do not disprove the rule: fix the problem.

Turnarounds in performance are more often influenced by other factors: changes in tactics, euphoria stemming from the short-term pain relief, changes in personnel or alterations on a systems level.

Whether or not you believe in the chaos theory maxim that the flutter of a butterfly's wings in one part of the world can influence weather in another part, success and failure are systemic. On an individual level, your lasting success is derived from your habits, your work ethic, the system of actions and responses that you have taken the time to program into your psyche, to learn.

This systematic influence of habits, work ethic, and programmed actions and responses, are also true on a corporate level. Where coaching changes, or changes in corporate leadership, are most beneficial is when these changes are a component of systematic alterations.

Then, why are we attracted to blame?

Blame is Easy

Our failures, both individual and corporate, leave us in pain. The psychological process of choosing blame over resolution is immediate gratification. Blame provides a path of less resistance. Resolution requires patience, fortitude, and rigor. Just as it is easier to break a vase then fix it, it is also easier to point the finger at the one who broke the vase then fix it.

However where pain is concerned, you can either pay now, or pay later with interest.

To employ another timeless example, observe closely the next time a highly visible publicly traded company replaces their CEO. The popularity of the move among the financial markets will be reflected in the short-term fluctuation of their stock price. But, what happens long-term?

If the dismissal is a scapegoat gesture, there will be no lasting improvement in the company's financial performance. The company took the easy way out. If the performance improves long-term, you can be sure that the dismissal was part of a systemic initiative: individual and collective habits changed, new plans were developed and carried out, a viable strategic vision was undertaken.

Fix the Problem or the Blame

It is not viable to expect that humans or any collection of humans will not make mistakes. If you are focused on achieving a goal, mistakes are a call to alter your strategy or improve your performance.

So you have a choice: either fix the problem or the blame! You cannot do both. Fixing the blame has the effect of diminishing pain, the same pain that would facilitate the lessons that need to be learned to avoid similar mistakes in the future.

REPUBLISHING PERMISSION: You are welcome to download or reprint this article so long as you include my byline and copyright at the end of each piece with a live weblink. Please forward publication specifics to http://www.JeffSimon-Consulting.com/. The attribution should read:

"By Jeff Simon of Jeff Simon Consulting, The Client Retention Specialists. Are you having trouble keeping your best clients? Please visit Jeff's website at http://www.JeffSimon-Consulting.com/ for additional articles and resources for keeping your best clients."

More Resources

Unable to open RSS Feed $XMLfilename with error HTTP ERROR: 404, exiting

More Coaching Information:

Related Articles

Why Don't You Just Stuff It ALL?
You got busy at work, got busy in your marriage, got busy with your home and maybe your kids and before you knew it..
Do You Make These Common Mistakes When Talking to People?
Many moons ago. Talking to people was something I avoided where possible.
Dont Be Jealous - Be Inspired
When we see people do things we cannot do, or have things we don't have, it might be tempting to be a little jealous. But, jealousy doesn't lead to anything except resentment, and that isn't going to help you.
The Benefits of Coaching
When I was first introduced to the profession of personal coaching, my first initial thought was that it sounded exactly like something I would love to pursue. I did further investigation into the profession and before I knew it I was happily enrolled in the Coach Training Program offered through Coach U University in Colorado, USA.
Finding a Mentor in the 21st Century
Traditionally, mentors volunteer the wisdom of their experiences to help others who wanted to follow in their footsteps. These days, many people have learned to appreciate the value of a good mentor.
Coaching Book Review: The Coach: Creating Partnerships for a Competitive Edge
Leaders today have many challenges when it comes to guiding and influencing the performance of their team members. In the past, productivity and success depended on sheer muscle and sweat.
Are You At The Point Of No Return?
There is a point at which everything becomes simple and there is no longer any question of choice, because all you have staked will be lost if you look back. Life's point of no return.
Leadership Coaching at Gettysburg
The battle at Gettysburg is one of the most notable events in U.S.
Poise, Posture, and Performance
Good posture is seen to have many advantages. From an aesthetic point of view it can enhance image, sending out the right signals (body language).
5 Steps to Derail Difficult People - Your Surefire Way to a Peaceful Resolution
That one guy at work that always has to be right; your buddy's wife who can't eat anywhere they serve burgers, or the monster-in-law, I mean mother-in-law, with too many opinions for your own good, difficult people, we all know them. So the question is, is there a right and a wrong way to deal with them? The answer is yes, if you want to avoid unnecessary confrontations.
Action NOT Reaction
Do you feel you are in charge of your life do you really believe that you control your destiny? Or you are of those people who feel manipulated all the time, they are doing things and they don't know, why? Do you have the sense that you are a wooden puppet that someone else pulls the strings?I have an answer for you.Psychologists have proven that human decisions are based on emotions, and once an emotional decision is made they use their logical part of the brain to justify that decision.
Burn-Out ...Whats Next?
If you feel the heat of burn-out, it is possible to stop the fire before it stops you. Burn-out burns out confidence trust hope Burn-out can burn up your job your marriage your friendships There is a simple strategy for helping yourself prevent burn-out, especially if you are a person with more responsibilities than choices.
What Does It Take To Have It All In Life?
Many people have asked me why I wrote my book, 'The Street Kid's Guide to Having it All', and I realized that some people simply do not believe that it is possible to 'have it all'. Well, I am here as an ambassador to dispel that rumor once and for all.
Run to Win
I was never much of an athlete growing up. Notoriously clumsy, I was ostracized by our school volleyball and basketball teams.
Is Your Life In Motion?
Ever since the Internet bubble and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I've seen many people; including friends and family lose their jobs and/or personal fortunes overnight. The struggling economy has been merciless on the job market.
How to be Your Authentic Self
Most of us play many different roles in the course of any given day. We could be Mom, Boss, Employee, Student or Friend, to name just a few.
Curbing the Public Nuisance (Part 2)
Yes, that pillar of society that has been with us since that slithery dude threw humanity for a curve in the Garden of Eden - that cornerstone of society has been automated.I am speaking, of course, of the public nuisance ( I wrote about him in Part 1 at http://www.
Let's Say You're a Dog. Are You So Competitive You'd Eat a Carrot?
Seems like a gal always learns something out on the farm! Yes, it's a farm tale and I'm going to change the names of the animals to protect the guilty!I spent last weekend down in Lower Alabama where my friend from high school owns a farm. On the neighboring property there lives a donkey we'll call "Jake.
Becoming An Empowered Consumer
How many times have you said to yourself?"I just wish that company would treat me like they appreciated my business!"?For many years I trained Customer Service Reps at a large corporation. There is no doubt that it was during those years I personally became a consumer with rather high standards and expectations.
What Rules!
There are things that we do automatically internally that we don't even realize are the things that make us who we are. Our own rules for living that we hardly ever question, and even less frequently examine.